Managers warn of worsening access to NHS care

In a survey of nearly 300 chief executives and chairmen, four in 10 say the financial situation facing their organisations is the “worst they had ever experienced” and another 47 per cent say it is “very serious”.

More than two thirds fear the pressures will intensify over the next three years, partly due to the impact of cuts by local councils, and that waiting times will worsen.

In a stark message, NHS Confederation chief executive Mike Farrar will today tell the annual conference of managers in Manchester that key decisions taken in the next 18 months over future health service reforms would determine “if the NHS is a going concern for future organisations to inherit”.

More than half of top bosses surveyed in Yorkshire said the financial position was the worst they had seen.

Nearly 70 per cent in the region said they thought the quality of NHS services would improve in the next 12 months but this fell to only 40 per cent in the next three years.

The NHS must save £20bn by 2015.

Mr Farrar will tell 1,500 delegates this is a time of “unprecedented confusion over policy and unprecedented nervousness about how we can deliver what’s asked of us” and that the warnings from NHS leaders in the survey should not be overlooked.

“The picture they paint is of pressure on money now and of pressure on money mounting down the line,” he will say.

“It is getting harder to maintain the great progress we have made on the quality of care and there is now real concern about the speed of access to services.”

He will warn there is a risk that the pledge of treating 90 per cent of patients within 18 weeks of referral by their GP could be breached within the next 12 months.

More than half of managers surveyed said they feared waiting times and availability of care will worsen in the next year.

Mr Farrar, a former chief executive at both South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire health authorities, is calling on MPs and local politicians across the country to show “political courage” and publicly back NHS managers making “tough decisions” about reorganisation of the NHS on quality, safety and “cost grounds”.

He calls on the Government to stop attacking NHS managers – adding that management numbers are now getting “dangerously low” after the “draconian” cutbacks.

The NHS – with a budget of £110bn – needs a proper level of management to succeed.

“The NHS is desperate for certainty and clarity. We need recognition of the enormous job we face and action to help, rather than hinder us, in delivering it,” he will say.

Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said: “This is further evidence of widespread anxiety in the health service, as financial pressures impact on patient care and we start to see the NHS going backwards again under the Tories.

“Meanwhile David Cameron and his Ministers are carrying on as if everything’s fine, pushing ahead with their huge and reckless top-down reorganisation and showing they are out of touch with the concerns of nurses, doctors and NHS leaders.”

Mr Cameron issued a guarantee last month not to lose control over patient waiting times as part of attempts to shore up support for the Government’s controversial health reforms.

Latest figures show the number of hospital trusts breaching waiting times limits of treating patients within 18 weeks of referral by their GPs have more than doubled in a year.

However, many are doing better than expected, meaning the NHS is still meeting its pledge of treating 90 per cent of patients within 18 weeks.

Hospitals overall in Yorkshire are meeting the standard although some are struggling, notably the Wakefield-based Mid Yorkshire trust.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who will address the conference tomorrow, claimed access to NHS services remained good and waiting times were stable.

The Government had pledged to keep waiting times low and provide an extra £2bn for social care by 2014.

“Ultimately, our modernisation plans will safeguard the future of the NHS, improve care for patients, drive up quality and support doctors and nurses in providing the best possible care for their patients,” he said.

WARD CLOSURES TO BOOST SERVICES

HOSPITAL chiefs in Sheffield say plans to axe two wards with 56 beds for the elderly in the city and re-provide care in the community will improve services.

Staff and unions have criticised changes which have seen one ward shut at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, to be followed by another next month, as elderly care is centralised at the Northern General Hospital.

Managers said more than £3m had been invested in care in the community to allow up to 150 people, who did not need to be in hospital, to leave.

Further reductions in beds would only be carried out once the success of the community programmes, including extra nursing home places, had been evaluated.